FIREBRAND

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  "In a hospital bed, not one of mine."

  "Interesting thought, though, isn't it?" His eyes flashed, but there was a hard glint of steel in the brown depths.

  "Interesting, but still impossible."

  "Why?"

  "In the first place, the only spare bed is a futon on the floor of the twins' room, which I can assure you is a fate worse than death. And in the second place, the kids and I have Aunt Bridget to protect us."

  She'd meant her words to be taken lightly. But Judd wasn't smiling. In fact, there was a look on his face she'd never seen before. Wherever he'd been, whatever he'd done, Judd had become a man who wasn't used to being questioned.

  "It's settled, Darcy." His hard, unyielding tone merely confirmed that impression. "Bunk me down on the dining room table if you have to, but I'm staying until Sean-O gets back."

  Judd pushed one fist under the pillow and shifted his restless gaze to a new shadow on the ceiling. Instead of the dining room table, Darcy had insisted that he take her bed while she bunked in with the twins.

  He guessed the time at 2:00 a.m. or a little past. The house had a settled feeling, as though it, too, had turned in for the night.

  Still wide-awake, he directed his gaze toward the slice of sky visible through the split in the lace curtains. When he'd slept in this room, the windows had been bare at his request. No blinds. No drapes. Nothing between him and the outdoors but a thin pane of glass. Like the thin glass between him and the large photograph of Mom and Dad and their twins on the nightstand.

  The colors had faded since it had been taken, but nothing could diminish the vibrant glow in Darcy's blue eyes as she cuddled her twins close.

  No one had to tell him how deep that kind of love could run. He'd seen too many mothers and fathers risk death to save one of their own.

  Nothing hurt more than the desperate, impotent grief of a father who had just realized his son or daughter was not coming out of the flames alive. Or the soul-wrenched agony of a mother forever separated from the baby she'd once carried inside her.

  Fire fighters lived with memories like that day and night. They saw those same terrible images in the dark just before they drifted off to sleep, and they prayed the next fire wouldn't add to those memories. Most took those memories to their graves. The lucky ones managed to offset them with images of their own loved ones. The unlucky ones, like him, fought to keep from envying them.

  Ask anyone in San Francisco about Judd Calhoun, and they would characterize him as a tough, unemotional S.O.B., devoted to his job and not much else.

  A family man? No way, not Calhoun. Sure, he liked kids okay. But he'd shied away from the old wedding march blues for so long now that no one ever thought of him as anything but a confirmed bachelor.

  Judd rubbed his hand over his belly and thought about the years he'd spent alone while Darcy had been changing from a teenager in the first flush of her sexual power to a lovely, competent, intriguing woman.

  Slitting his eyes, Judd studied the tanned, all-American features of the man sitting next to Darcy. Steve Fisher. He hadn't changed much between the wedding and the time this picture had been taken. Gotten a little heavier maybe, lost a little of his widow's peak.

  No complaints, she'd said, but the dreamy look of some private memory in her eyes had said far more than her words. And Judd had found himself jealous of a dead man.

  Easing to his side, he closed his eyes and willed his mind to shut down. It shouldn't matter one damn bit that she had been sleeping in this same spot less than twenty-four hours earlier.

  Or that she had probably been wearing the pale yellow wisp of silk that she'd snatched from the back of the bathroom door when she'd thought he wasn't looking.

  And it shouldn't matter that she had been sneaking him soft, wary looks all day, as though she were as aware of the chemistry between them as he was.

  It shouldn't matter, but damn, it did.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  Darcy was leaning over the bed, her hair a wild halo, the yellow of her gown shimmering white in the glow from the outside light.

  For an instant Judd thought he was dreaming, and then she touched him, testing the temperature of his forehead with her hand.

  "What is this, some kind of fetish you're developing, Red? Watching guys sleep?" he managed to ask without revealing the extent of the pain racking his knees.

  She set a glass on the nightstand, along with a small bottle of pills. "I heard you groaning, and I thought you might need a couple of pain pills."

  "I'm fine."

  "Of course you are. That's why you're dripping wet and you've managed to twist the last of my mother's linen sheets into a Chinese puzzle knot."

  Judd had to lift his head to get a look. She was right. Worse, he had gotten himself angled across her bed darn near buck naked. Jaw turning to granite, he tugged at the sodden linen. "Here, let me."

  "Forget it, Darcy. I'm not one of your kids."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, Judd. I've seen you without your clothes on plenty of times."

  "Once." His clipped tone had her lips turning upward in a mischievous grin.

  "More than that, actually. Don't tell anyone, but I used to watch you swimming naked in the gravel pit. Believe me, Judd, seeing you in these ratty old boxer shorts is no big deal."

  She gave the sheet a hard tug and it slipped from beneath him, then she reached for the glass. "Here, take a sip first."

  "What's that?"

  "Looks like water to me, although it could be straight vodka. I guess you'll have to taste it to find out."

  "Very funny." She smelled of roses, like the pillowcase beneath his head.

  "I don't like pills. I've had enough shoved down my throat this past year to last me a lifetime." Somehow he managed to muscle his body higher on the pillows.

  "A couple more won't hurt you." She lifted his hand from the mattress and dropped the pills into his palm.

  "What are these?"

  She showed him the label. "The doctor gave you a prescription, remember?"

  "I threw it in the trash." He glared at her with suspicion.

  "I know, but I took it out and had it filled."

  "Why?"

  "Because you always did have more guts than sense."

  Certain he had lost both somewhere along the line, he briefly toyed with the idea of pulling her down on the bed and using her to ease the worst of his pain.

  "Stop glaring at me, Calhoun. I'm used to stubborn rascals like you, and I'm not leaving this room until you take those pills."

  "What if I told you I don't want you to leave? What if I told you I want you to crawl in here with me?"

  His eyes pinned her, allowing her no room to maneuver. "I would say that would be a big mistake." Her voice was soft. Too soft.

  "Would it? Why?"

  His eyes continued to challenge hers, and she fought a swift draining weakness that seemed to be pulling her closer to the bed.

  "Haven't you heard? Casual sex is out these days. You know, AIDS, herpes, things like that."

  His eyes darkened, but his expression didn't change. "Believe me, Red. The doctors in San Francisco General tested me for everything imaginable while they had me tied down in that damn bed, and the only thing they could find was a set of bum knees and an unusually slow heartbeat."

  Angry at herself for letting him make her nervous, she glanced at the door she'd closed behind her so that their voices wouldn't carry. "I'm glad, but—"

  "So what about you? Any communicable diseases I should know about?"

  Her jaw dropped. "Of course not!"

  He raised one eyebrow. "Double standard, Red? I thought you were a liberated woman."

  "I am. What I'm not is promiscuous."

  "Neither am I."

  "I didn't say you were."

  "But that's what you think, right? A godless sinner like me, with the garbage I'm dragging around. How could a guy like that live a straight-arrow life?"<
br />
  He threw off the sheet, obviously intending to leave the bed. And her. But something went wrong, and he doubled over, racked by a sudden fit of coughing.

  "Judd?"

  The mattress dipped, and then she was next to him, holding the glass of water in front of him. "Here, drink this."

  Another spasm shook him before he could comply. He finished it all, and then lay back against the pillows, his face gray.

  Darcy sat next to him, afraid to move. He looked spent, and yet strong as a bull. The contradiction frightened her.

  "Are you all right? Should I call the doctor?"

  "What for? He's already told you what's wrong. Smoke inhalation, diminished lung capacity, a start on the emphysema that hits most firemen sooner or later."

  Eyes closed, he concentrated on his breathing until the worst of the rasping eased, and then, eyes opening to slits, he said impatiently, "I thought you couldn't wait to leave." His voice was raspy but strong.

  "I thought you asked me to stay."

  His gaze shifted to the ceiling. "A momentary lapse of good sense on my part. Forget it."

  "You never used to give up so easily."

  His eyes opened fully, then kindled dangerously. "You know what I want. If that's what you want, fine. If not, fine, too."

  Tough words from a tough man, she thought. Blunt, to the point, without phony promises to make them easier to take.

  "That's it, Judd. I don't know what I want."

  The room was too close, the magnetism of his masculinity too powerful. Only a fool would stay. Only a woman made of ice and stone instead of warm flesh and blood would go.

  "That's where we're different, Red. I know what I want. I want to make love to you again."

  "Why?"

  He looked perplexed, and then irritation took over his face. "Because I like you better than any female I've ever met. And I trust you. And even when you were a kid, you did things to my control that no other woman before you or since you has been able to do."

  His hand covered hers where it was tensed on her thigh. She sensed an almost-shy hesitation in his strong fingers and found herself immeasurably touched. "I never had to tell other women about you because you were always there in bed with us. Somehow women know when a man is carrying a torch as big as the one I've been toting around."

  "Maybe it's your imagination."

  "Possibly. Or maybe it's this road map of freckles that always showed up after you'd been in the sun too long that turns me on."

  His free hand flattened against her bare throat, his fingers making a ragged pattern of the freckles beneath.

  Darcy shivered, but the pleasure of those warm fingers lightly touching her skin was too deep to resist.

  "Or maybe it's all this red hair you keep insisting is auburn." Her scalp tingled where his fingers combed, and she sat motionless, drawn by the hunger that seemed to radiate from him.

  His fingers tightened, urging her closer. "Maybe it's the way you have of making me want to laugh or the way you picked up the pieces of your life and made it great. Maybe it's all of those things, or maybe it's none of those things." His thumb slowly stroked the apple of her cheek, and he felt her tremble.

  "The last time." She shivered. "I still remember…"

  Judd felt her words hit like hammer blows. "The last time I was a selfish jerk. I know better now."

  He searched her eyes for some response, some key to her thoughts. He wouldn't blame her if she walked out on him. On the other hand, it would hurt like hell if she did.

  "I was so young. I was expecting bells to ring and fireworks to explode."

  "I thought they did," he said in a gruff tone that had her gaze clinging to his.

  Suddenly she was quivering-inside nervous, and she was having trouble keeping her breathing steady. It wasn't that she didn't want to make love with him. She did. And she had no doubt that he wanted to make love to her.

  Her fingers tentatively touched the springy hair on his chest, bringing the muscles beneath the skin to instant hardness. His hand covered hers, stilling her restless fingers.

  "Is this your answer, Red?"

  "Yes, I think it is." The breathless urgency in her tone went straight to his blood, firing the need that was already simmering.

  "Not good enough, Red. This time you need to be clearheaded and rational and sure I'm the man you want to make love to you. Me, Judd Calhoun. Not some perfect, unsoiled guy from your imagination." His fingers pressed tighter. "Take a good look. I have some gray, a few more lines in my face, bum knees, but I'm still the guy you have every right to hate."

  "I don't hate you." Emotion flared in his pupils, but the still, waiting look on his face only intensified. He was forcing her to come to him. No, not forcing. Respecting her enough to offer the choice.

  "I'm not very good at this," she whispered.

  "At what?"

  "Asking a man to make love to me."

  The last of the tension left his mouth, and he smiled crookedly. "Why don't you try kissing him and see what happens?"

  His expression softened until she no longer saw a trace of the aloof, defensive man who'd walked back into her life less than three months ago. Instead, his eyes were dark with a need so powerful it must have been living inside him for a long, long time.

  Smiling, she leaned forward to brush her mouth ever so softly over his. "Like that?" she whispered.

  His eyes flashed, and his chest expanded in a deep, shuddering breath. "It's a good start."

  He looked at her, his throat working, then cast a quick glance toward the door. Finding it closed, he wondered fleetingly if she'd planned this, and then knew that she hadn't.

  "Red?" His scarred, rough hand slowly, soothingly, massaged the nape of her neck. "Mmm."

  "I think you'd better lock that door."

  "No one comes in here without permission."

  "Sure?" His voice had a rough burr, as though he were having difficulty keeping it steady. A delicious feeling of power ran through her, followed immediately by a heightened need to be touched the way she was touching him.

  "Yes. Besides, it's the middle of the night."

  Caressingly, she slid her fingers along the hard line of his chest muscles until she found the flat nipple all but buried in the soft hair. Using her thumb, she soon had the tiny nub pebble-hard. He sucked air in swiftly, then let it out in a long groan.

  "I guess you've made up your mind," he gasped.

  "Guess so." She trailed her fingers across the wide chest to the other nipple and watched it whiten and then harden like its mate.

  Frowning prodigiously, Judd clamped his hand over hers again and gestured toward the dresser. "Before this gets totally out of hand, you'd better pass me my wallet."

  She blinked, then managed a smile. "Still prepared, I see."

  "Yeah, but I'm kinda worried about the shelf life of condoms because that one's been in my wallet for a long time."

  "How long?"

  His eyebrows lifted, giving him the look of a mischievous boy. "Honestly, I don't know. A year? Two?"

  Even though she matched his grin with one of her own, she didn't like to think of the reason the small packet was there. Or the others that it had replaced. Or worse, why they'd had to be replaced.

  Silently, she padded to the dresser, where he'd put the things from his pockets, and retrieved his wallet. "I'll let you do the honors," she murmured, handing it over.

  "Keep your fingers crossed. Aha." He slid a small foil packet from one of the folds and slipped it and his wallet under the pillow.

  "Last chance, Red." The tremor in his voice had her gaze searching his face. His rugged, not really handsome features were intense and dark and touched with pain.

  Holding her breath, she slipped in next to him and reached for the sheet, but his big hand covered hers.

  "Don't expect too much." She took a long breath. "I'm not sixteen anymore, and even when I was, I wasn't centerfold material."

  Expecting the usual twinges
and aches, he eased slowly to his side and propped his head in his hand. "If we're … taking stock, neither am I," he said between small, gentle kisses designed to take the edge off her nerves. And his. "In fact, I'm … kinda beat-up."

  "Battle … scars," she whispered, her mouth softening more after each kiss.

  Her hand ran up his arm to cup his shoulder. Her fingers were warm, her touch delicate, but the light kindling in her eyes was anything but fragile.

  This time he used his tongue to trace the curve of her lower lip. Her breath escaped in a rush, and then her fingers were opening and closing against his flesh.

  Leaning back, he traced the line of her nightgown with his finger before slipping the tips under the thin material to find the soft swell of her breasts.

  They were firm and warm, with hot rough tips. Her eyes widened, and her breath came faster. His own was too labored, too harsh.

  Using his palm, he kneaded one breast, then the other, exploring the fullness as though for the first time. "You're better than centerfold material because you're real and warm and soft," he murmured, leaning over to take her mouth again.

  Her lips clung, then moved feverishly under his, inviting more. Accepting, he teased her mouth open with his tongue, then slid it deep. Gasping, she arched upward, pressing the hard little nipple into his palm.

  He felt the rip of desire and then a pulsing, insistent pressure between his legs. Already half-aroused, his body swelled to a throbbing hardness far too quickly.

  Lifting his head, he forced his mind away from the almost-desperate craving to thrust into her and ease the ache. Instead, he focused his attention on the pulse hammering in her throat.

  Using his tongue, he counted the beats until some of the heat in his loins cooled. Then, slowly, he bathed her throat in kisses, moving downward with each until he was able to nuzzle her breasts.

  At the same time he eased her nightgown higher until her thighs were fully exposed and gleaming white. He trailed lazy fingertips over the smooth skin. He slid her panties off with ease and resumed stroking her thighs, circling higher and higher until his fingers found the soft thatch of hair between her legs.